Posted On April 24, 2013
By Steve Lozar Independent Record
Montana’s brewing history has been a mirror reflection of the history of our territory and state from Johnny Grants’ first brewery on Cotton Wood Creek in 1859 to today.
Montanans have celebrated beer made by Montanans in their own mining camps, logging towns, ethnic neighborhoods and cow towns. Beer brewed locally and sold in each breweries sample room with its customary “Dutch Lunch” was a Montana tradition. The local brewery was often our floor of political debate, public meeting hall and occasional wedding chapel and court room. Each small Montana community took great pride in the fact that they had a local brewery. That fact was often proclaimed in real estate pamphlets used to entice easterners to come west and invest in Big Sky country. Many Montana brewers served the state and territory as legislators, mayors and lawmen. Montana breweries sponsored civic organizations, youth activities and helped the less fortunate.
In 1919 the breweries and their respective towns and cities were rocked with poor state and national law known as Prohibition. It became known as “The Great Mistake.” The short-sighted lawmaker’s who voted Montana dry, hurt Montana business in many ways. Montana farmers had nowhere to sell their malting barley. Truckers and railways no longer delivered Montana made beer around our state. A huge state revenue in taxes no longer existed. The time honored “Public House or sample room” no longer served the citizens of countless burghs. The thriving Montana brewing business was the victim of self- serving politics and a national campaign of fear and mistruth. With the repeal of the Volstad Act in 1933 brewers, could once again ply their trade legally in the United States. Many Montana breweries however, did not survive the 14 years of government prohibition.
The jobs lost, payrolls gone and the lost city, county and state taxes and licensing fees were painful. The legislative attack on the independent Montana spirit of a man building his own business on the sweat of this brow was the most painful experience of all. Repeal legislation made it illegal for Montana brewers to own their own tasting rooms. Montana laws favored large out-of-state breweries and made it very difficult for local brewers to compete. By 1968, local Montana brewing was reduced to a memory. No Montana breweries existed. A few local brand names were produced out of state for sale in Montana as “discount” beer but they were not brewed with the original Montana receipts or materials.
By the 1980’s breweries again began to grow in Montana. After 20 years of no Montana breweries a few pioneering craft brewers were again looking to local farmers to purchase materials for local brewing. The industry has rebounded here in our homeland with new breweries catering once again to our local tastes, paying local taxes and most offering the public house sample rooms so vitally connected to our communities’ histories and futures.
As in Montana’s past however, there lurks today an element that seeks to use restrictive legislation and a self-serving agenda to seriously harm or unfairly eliminate our local community based breweries. Representative Roger Hagan (R–Great Falls) is carrying a bill for the Montana Tavern Association often referred to as the 60/40 or anti-brewery bill. Much like the disastrous history of government catering to special interests that has plagued Montana brewing history, this bill restricts the hours of operation, the amounts of product sold, eliminates food from the sample rooms, and ultimately seeks to eliminate a Montana industry that generates in excess of 450 Montana jobs and $50 million dollars annually to our states struggling economy.
Rep. Roger Hagan’s bill is wrong for Montana. It flies in the face of our state’s history of honoring a man who is willing to build his business with his own hands. Don’t be fooled by the Montana Tavern Association’s attempt to ruin a growing community based industry. Please call your legislators (444-4800) and encourage them to vote no on this unfair bill.
Steve Lozar is a published Montana brewery historian